Thursday, September 28, 2006

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! I am a blogging novice so this is pretty new to me. I decided to start a blog because I've started a new chapter in my life. I feel like a caterpillar that just became a butterfly- breaking free of my cocoon and becoming a married woman and starting a family of my own.

My dear husband (DH) is Rob. He is 27 years old and a native of Georgia. He is a software engineer for a medical research firm. He is currently attending Johns Hopkins University for his Master's degree in Computer Science. Rob enjoys boating, sailing, reading, and really anything to do with computers. He is one of the most ambitious people I've ever met. He is determined to start his own consulting business and he has so many dreams he wants to fulfill. He inspires me each and everyday.

Rob and I met online in a Yahoo! chat room of all places. We started out as friends, chatting here and there when we would log on at the same time. After a few months, we decided to talk over the phone. Hearing his voice made it that much more real for me. My feelings intensified and after a few more months, we finally met in person. It didn't take us long to realize there was more than friendship between us. We dated for a year and a half before he popped the question on June 5, 2005. We were married on June 21, 2006 and it was the happiest day of my life thus far. I truly believe I've found the person I want to grow old with.

Our life together has been amazing but it hasn't come without its trials and tribulations. Back in August 2005, we found out that we were pregnant and we were thrilled. Unfortunately, we miscarried at 5 weeks. It was devastating to the both of us. No one I knew had suffered through a loss of such profound proportions. The funny thing was that, before I became pregnant, I wasn't even sure I wanted children right away. I was more of the career type and was focused on school. This whole experience made me realize how important having a family really was to me and I quickly developed baby fever. So, after a few months of recovery (both physical and emotional), we started to try to conceive (TTC) again around February 2006.

After several months of "not really trying, but not avoiding", I bought a basal body thermometer (BBT) and began charting, which is supposed to aid in conception. It helps you to learn more about your body - when or if you are ovulating, if your hormones are high or low, things like that. My first BBT cycle was in May 2006. After a few weeks, I noticed that my chart did not show a clear ovulation pattern. I took pregnancy test after pregnancy test, which came back negative. The due date for my period (AF or Aunt Flo) had come and gone without a trace. After 2 months of no AF, we found the culprit to be an ovarian cyst, which ruptured in July 2006. Now, we are waiting for my charts to get back to normal so we can finally get our big fat positive (BFP), or our "sticky bean".

This blog is going to be somewhat therapeutic for me since the TTC journey is so complex. It is exciting, anxious, nervous, scary and frustrating all at the same time. So, this will be my preconception diary, where I can document all my thoughts, fears, and dreams. And maybe another fellow TTCer can learn a thing or two from my experiences.

1 comment:

Barb said...

Hey Kristen!
I don't know if you look at comments from this long ago, but I was reading your archives. Can you believe my DH and I met on Yahoo Chat as well??? We met way back in 1997 on there when it was a tiny nothing with about 20 people on at a time. Our story is very similar otherwise, and we were JP married (since he's Canadian) in Oct of 2003 and big wedding married in August of 2004. I feel like we were lucky that we were both honest with each other, b/c it allowed me to meet the best possible man for me I could ever find. :)

Cool! :)
B